A Crime of Cosmic Proportions

Dear friends,
I’m excited to share a pre-Passover video with you all. But first a short response to this week’s sad events.

With Passover around the corner we hear the call of freedom. This week’s parasha, Vayikra begins with Moses hearing God’s call. We heard one this week coming out of Georgia and echoing around the country. Of the many statements issued on the violence, the one that resonated most with me was of a local theater called The Tank. I adapt their statement and share it here:

The New Shul stands in solidarity with the Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community and condemns the recent alarming incidents of hate and violence, and the ongoing culture of white supremacy and silence that has led to them. Now is the time for those of us who are non-AAPI to examine our own complicity in this culture, find ways to amplify and lift up voices who are graciously teaching in this moment, participate in trainings so we might do more, march and donate.

To our AAPI members and friends,
we commit to doing better.

Our tradition attempts to set us up for moments like these, so that we might succeed in doing the right thing. One of the ways we do that is by talking about the many facets of freedom. This year at the School for Creative Judaism, where TNS children learn Hebrew and Judaism, the annual theme is the Year of the Philosophers. We might be the only Hebrew school in the entire world to have a philosopher in residence, our very own David Ponet. So I took the opportunity to invite David to a philosophical conversation about freedom, Passover and some Jewish philosophers who have illuminated the topic.

The video attempts to speak to people of various ages, so if you have kids get them some matzah and grape juice or some type of snack and see if they have good answers to the questions posed. There are some suggested instructions for eating, drinking and discussing embedded into the video, which will be fun for everyone.

Please send me any reflections or answers to the questions you come up with. David and I are excited to hear your thoughts.

Two final things: Shabbat Ohr will be this evening at 6pm with Rabbi Nicole Fix.

Next Friday evening we will have a pre-Passover Dostoevskian Shabbat get together in which we will do a bit less praying, and more freedom reading together of pieces from Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor, one of modern literature’s greatest challenges to our traditional understanding of the concept of freedom. Invite your friends!

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha